Could you tell me how cheese was made in the countryside?
Categories: Eriks Zachs
Here in Latgale, two kinds of cheese were made in those times. One was the simple salted curd cheese, which my mother, as well as my father’s godmother, who was by father’s sister, made.
That cheese was made in this way: curd was heated, pressed and then put in a bag, made of linen especially for cheese, and then that bag was placed between two pieces of wood, it was salted and pressed or some other weight was put on that. Most probably, that was some rock. However, one could place also any other heavy object. When the cheese had stayed for a while, it was taken out of that special cheese bag, after which there were certain patterns of home-woven cloth pressed in the cheese; for me as a kid it was interesting to look at them. The cheese was salted, it had already been salted before, maybe some more salt was added, then it was put into a piece of cheese-cloth and dried. The cheese that was not dried was eaten up at once. But dried cheese could be preserved for longer.
The other kind of cheese made was cooked cheese, but it was not made at our home, because my mom did not really like it, but I did. Always, when we visited the neighbours, actually almost in every farmhouse people treated others to what they had. There was cheese and I always ate that cooked cheese, because we did not have such cheese at home. Then, already some twenty years ago and now, from time to time, when I have curds, I make cooked cheese. I can tell you how it is made. You should take fresh milk, pour it into some saucepan and place it on fire. Then you add crumbled curds and heat, but not to the boiling temperature, it should be a bit lower. One needs some experience for that. Then it is poured through some cheesecloth or something and only the curds are left. The curds are again put into the saucepan, in which butter has already been melted, and then you stir it on the fire, on the stove. Then you add cream that has been whipped with egg yolks, caraway seeds and salt. All that is heated on the stove and stirred using some wooden stirrer. The experience is necessary also in this process, when it gets hot, it as if melts, you should stir it until the moment when that piece of cheese rolls into a sort of a ball. Then it is put into some mould – or into the same dish and is left to cool. What you get is the cooked cheese. That’s about all I know about cheese.
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Researcher: Dr. philol. Valentīns Lukaševičs, Daugavpils Universitāte
